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Meron Gribetz Wants To Build The IOS Of The Mind

When Meron Gribetz stood on the TED Stage on Wednesday, he was almost giddy with excitement. Sure he had cool toys to show, and certainly the pre-TED buzz had created anticipation for his Augmented Reality glasses.

But with the TED audience didn’t know was that TED had been critical in Gribetz journey from neuroscientist to technology entrepreneur.

Meron Gribetz at TED 2016 (Photo: Steven Rosenbaum)

“It was when I saw a TED talk that I saw the future,” Gribetz told me before his talk at TED in Vancouver. Today the former NYU neuroscience graduate student is a driven and passionate 30-year-old CEO of Meta.

"Pranav Mistry's TED Talk from 2009 inspired me. It got me thinking about a more natural machine that could extend our senses. He had a phone and a pico projector and he did all these natural gestures. It was Badass!” Now that TED talk has been viewed 14 million times - but Meron did more than watch the talk, it launched him on a journey. “I had this dream of putting URLs on the world. In the next five years, these glasses are going to be a strip of glass over your eyes. The glasses dissolve, and you're our left with holograms that become the next generation of computing.” For Gribitez, a journey that began with a TED talk has come full circle as he demoed the Meta 2 glasses on the TED stage.

I put on the Meta2 glasses, and I can only say that the feeling is truly a mix of Iron Man and Minority Report. It's magical, powerful, electrifying and fun. There is none of the concerns about dizziness or lack of balance. It's rock solid tech, and it rocks!

Gribetz’s vision isn’t small. And the space he’s working in has room for his vision. “It's going to be the biggest industry in computing ever. I want magic leap and oculus to succeed.” But while there’s lots of focus on gaming, Gribetz says, "Meta is focused on the office, and productivity, and artists and thinkers and builders.”

Gribetz says what he’s building goes far beyond video or television, that he’s working on creating a platform to create experiences. “What we’re passionate about is building a workspace that is very custom to each and every one of us. We’re building your dream digital workshop. It’s the Iron Man basement, but it’s more than that. We’re passionate about the digital workspace.”

Gribetz says he describes himself as a neuroscientist. "My whole mission in building this company is build computing that is an order of magnitude easier to use than an apple device. My whole goal and my background is neuroscience. I’m here to build the field of neuroscience at user experience and build the IOS of the mind."

I'm a startup guy, first and foremost. I like building things. Companies, Films, Books - they all feel like creation. I've started and built four companies. Most…

I'm a startup guy, first and foremost. I like building things. Companies, Films, Books - they all feel like creation. I've started and built four companies. Most recently, the video curation company waywire.com.
Along the way I've made some films, most notably "Seven Days In September" - about the week after 9/11 in New York. And I've written on the coming together of tech and human skills in my book "Curation Nation" (McGraw/Hill 2012).
As a lifelong New Yorker, and serial entrepreneur, I was named New York City’s first ever Entrepreneur at Large - by the Bloomberg Administration. A pretty cool honor and a fun gig. I get to preach the gospel of NYC.
Waywire.com is my full time gig - and it keeps me busy. Video is just getting started on the web - and Curation is the secret sauce that makes it work.
I'm passionate about Startups, what they're doing to sparkplug the digital economy.